Simultaneous sample purification, enrichment and analysis of
pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, pollutants, biotechnological products,
synthetic organic reaction products and food/flavor ingredients from
complex matrices can be performed using porous hollow fiber or
porous-disk liquid-membrane devices. The devices are part of a multi-well
(e.g. 96-well) plate. The devices can be used for selective separation
and enrichment of complex mixtures containing trace levels of analytes,
and can be used in tandem with analytical instruments which routinely
handle multiple samples under high throughput screening conditions. A
multi-well/multi-vial plate can into state-of-the-art HPLC or GC sampling
systems or LC/MS or GC/MS instruments. Samples can be enriched several
orders of magnitude and can directly be withdrawn from the fiber and
injected into the chromatographic instruments. Alternatively, these
enriched samples can be introduced directly into MS, CE or other
detection devices. Selective extraction of complex mixtures of analytes
can be achieved through variation of acceptor phase chemistry, liquid
membrane coating, pore size control of the hollow fibers, nature of the
polymer from which the hollow fibers are made or pH of the acceptor
phase.